The Champions Series will be swum in long course with athletes participating on an invite-only basis and will include a team scoring format. It was announced in December amid FINA’s attempt to block the International Swim League, which has a similar format. The three-leg series has stops Guangzhou April 27-28, Budapest May 11-12, and Indianapolis May 31-June 1.

FINA sent invites to 45 male swimmers from 15 different countries, and to 37 female swimmers from 17 different countries, but we don’t know exactly who was invited. The list of invited swimmers includes “Rio 2016 Olympic medallists, Budapest 2017 World Championships’ medallists, World Record holders, and leaders of the 2018 FINA World Swimming Rankings,” FINA says.

Below is the running list of swimmers set to participate in at least one stop based on FINA‘s announcement and other reports:

The competition as a whole will lack distance events, with each meet including timed finals of just 50, 100, and 200m races in freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly, as well as a 400 free and 200 IM. FINA will award nearly $4 million in prize money across the series, making it the richest swimming event in the organization’s history. It will also cover athletes’ travel costs and provide them with appearance money.

From ISL to this series, Japanese swimmers showed zero interest in these profitable professional competition. There’s not a single word on Japanese media about this meet. It seems the swimmers really don’t care about the money. Maybe it’s because the Olympics at their homeland is the clear priority to them, which is what will actually bring them the largest amount of money as well as huge reputation.

Vote Up80Vote Down Reply

1 month ago

Bachstelze

The top Japanese swimmers don’t really need that money, as they already have strong support from their sponsor companies (Daiya Seto at ANA, Kosuke Hagino at Bridgestone, Reona Aoki at Miki House, and so forth). They definitely don’t struggle to pay their rent.

The invite-only format was probably also off-putting; this is a very egalitarian society.

Vote Up4-1Vote Down Reply

1 month ago

Meeeeee

I don’t get it. I guess the $$ overrides how FINA has treated the sport?

Vote Up2-3Vote Down Reply

1 month ago

bear drinks beer

This doesn’t seem like the full list. Andrew, Hentke, Heintz , Fratus etc. also confirmed participation. Looks like they only pick some notable big names to show the ‘high level’ of their competition.

Vote Up4-3Vote Down Reply

1 month ago

About Torrey Hart

Torrey is from Oakland, CA, and majors in media studies and American studies at Claremont McKenna College, where she swims distance freestyle for the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps team. Outside of SwimSwam, she has bylines at Yahoo Sports, SB Nation, and The Student Life newspaper.